Errori for
The Flight of the Phoenix (1965)

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• Continuity: The plane that the characters leave on.[see also trivia entry]
  
  
• Factual errors: Captain Towns refers to having cleaned the carburetor jets thoroughly. The Pratt and Whitney R-2800 has a pressure carburetor that could not be disassembled in that desert without contaminating it. Also, it could not have been reassembled correctly without use of a pressure bench to recalibrate all the regulating springs and diaphragms.
  
  
• Continuity: A couple close-ups of Frank during the opening flight breakdown sequence are reversed.
  
  

• Continuity: Clouds suddenly appear in the sky when Frank sits down, after Dr. Renaud says, "Watching each other die could be even harder."
  
  
• Continuity: When the crew is discussing how to deal with the Arabs, Dorfmann is clean-shaven one moment and he has a beard the next.
  
  
• Continuity: When Cobb dies in the desert he writes his name in the sand. The (already blurry) letters are disturbed when Towns chases away a vulture. But when he turns to read it, the writing is restored (it now looks like wet sand writing).
  
  
• Continuity: Cuts and abrasions appear and disappear on the faces of all of the characters throughout the entire film.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Just as the phoenix takes off, the undercarriage is visible with wheels mounted on the skis.
  
  
• Continuity: At the end of the movie, when the Phoenix takes flight, there are several times when tires can be seen on the skids.
  
  
• Continuity: At the end of the movie, a ground shot shows the top of the Phoenix's wings with no-one lying on them.
  
  
• Varie: In the scene where Captain Harris is talking about the pressed dates he says, "I think that's about all" and Ratbags says, "That's enough". At this point an insect runs across the upper left of the camera lens.
  
  
• Continuity: When the port wing and engine section is being separated from the rest of the plane, a shot of the winch shows the cable moving ever so slowly. The wing section, however, moves quite a ways in a short time.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the scene where the 'Phoenix' is rolling along the ground and trying to get aloft, you can see small buildings on the horizon.
  
  
• Continuity: Right after Cobb attacks Capt. Harris and is subdued, George Kennedy's character, Bellamy, is seen standing under the plane's wing while Watson (Ronald Fraser) lies on the ground next to the doorway. In the very next shot, Bellamy is seen sitting in the doorway next to Watson.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Early in the movie, while Cobb is taking a walk in the dunes around the crash site, the camera looks back at the downed aircraft and shows the Port (left) tail boom broken in half. In every other part of the movie, the Starboard (right) tail boom is broken in half.
  
  

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